Turbine is Out of the MMO Business

A “new” developer, Standing Stone Games announced earlier this week that it will continue support for both Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons & Dragons Online. The two beloved MMOs have been long-standing titles (both around the 10-year mark) with Turbine. Standing Stone Games seems to be created with many of the people who were working on the titles with Turbine already. This is all very reminiscent of how Dark Age of Camelot switched from Mythic to Broadsword for continued support under EA. Standing Stone Games will be supported by Daybreak (the EQ people).

This brought into question what will happen to the two other MMO titles, Asheron’s Call and Asheron’s Call 2, under Turbine as they were not mentioned in this announcement. The sad but somewhat expected news was released on Asheron’s Call’s Facebook page shortly after that both titles are going to close their servers at the end of January 2017. Asheron’s Call, released in 1999, leaves behind a 16-year-old community.